Research Seminar Series - Luk Van Langenhove

Academic Director of the Institute for European Studies (VUB) and Founding Director of UNU-CRIS

Regionalism and the Statehood-Theory of Regions

A region and related concepts such as regionalism, regional security, regional cooperation or regional integration, are since long frequently used within the epistemic realm of International Relations (IR) and the study of world politics. The United Nations Charter - crafted in 1945 - for instance, devotes a whole chapter to so-called regional arrangements. Today, entities such as the European Union, are referred to as a regional organization. But, common as it might be used by policy-makers and scholars, it is not always very clear what actually is referred to when regions are mentioned in the framework of world politics. This presentation discusses how different pieces of literature in IR and beyond have dealt with the notion of a region at supra-national level. It will be argued that in order to advance scholarly understanding of such regionalisms, regions need to be looked at as governance entities with statehood properties. It will be claimed that supra-national regions are not states, but they can be regarded as actors that can behave as if they are states. Finally, the implications of such a position for the comparative study of supra-national regionalisms will be discussed.

Tuesday 19 June 2018
14:00 - 15:30 
UNU-CRIS, Bruges

Registration is required!

Please register here before 18 June 23:59 CET.